How do you handle a friend who knew of your wifes affair and helped it continue?

[10132]

How do you handle a person who knew of your wifes affair and helped it continue? Would you allow your significant other to continue with their friendship or insist no contact?

[MJJean]

Nope! Any friends who aided and abetted the affair aren't decent people, cannot be trusted, aren't real friends, and need to ease on down the road.

[somanymistakes]

Would you allow your significant other to continue with their friendship

 

honestly i think at the point where you start saying "I will not allow you to speak to your friend again" you should just throw in the towel on the marriage, it's not going to work.

[cabbageman]

Define "helped it continue".

 

If a good friend of mine told me he is cheating on his wife, why the hell would I tell his wife? It's none of my business. He's been my friend for longer then I know her, so I'd take his side any day, his happiness is more important to me then hers. []

 

But if it was my wife who cheated on me, and another friend of mine knew and didn't tell me, then he's not respecting the bros before hos rule, and so he's out.

Edited December 29, 2017 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
Language

[Marc878]

Her friend is no friend of your marriage or you.

 

They should be cut off permanently.

 

It would be a fixture of Reconcilliation which is a gift from you.

[whichwayisup]

How do you handle a person who knew of your wifes affair and helped it continue? Would you allow your significant other to continue with their friendship or insist no contact?

 

That friend is no friend of the marriage. If you two are back together then that friend has to go for good. If your wife gets upset or fights you on this, then tell her she can choose you or the friend, not both.

[Whoknew30]

Your wife is the crappy friend for putting her friend in this position. No one “helped” your wife do anything, a grown woman makes her own choices & if you’re putting your effort into blaming others but staying with your wife...you don’t seem to have a prayer.

 

I NEVER understood this logic to blame someone Bc they knew what another grown adult is doing. It’s like, if I know my friend is doing drugs & she gets caught, her spouse calling me the addict even though it wasn’t me. It just doesn’t make any logical sense to stay with your spouse & blame others...what if she does it again? Who will you blame next?

[littleblackheart]

Your wife is the crappy friend for putting her friend in this position. No one “helped” your wife do anything, a grown woman makes her own choices & if you’re putting your effort into blaming others but staying with your wife...you don’t seem to have a prayer.

 

I NEVER understood this logic to blame someone Bc they knew what another grown adult is doing. It’s like, if I know my friend is doing drugs & she gets caught, her spouse calling me the addict even though it wasn’t me. It just doesn’t make any logical sense to stay with your spouse & blame others...what if she does it again? Who will you blame next?

 

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

It's fine for the OP to cut ties with the friend if it'll make them feel better, after they've left their wife. Staying with the wife despite her betrayal and starting to make demands on her while blaming a third party makes no sense to me either.

Edited December 29, 2017 by littleblackheart

[drifter777]

How do you handle a person who knew of your wifes affair and helped it continue? Would you allow your significant other to continue with their friendship or insist no contact?

No chance. Period.

[eye of the storm]

I understand his question. My xH was sleeping with someone I thought was my best friend. Most of the people in our social group knew about it and some actively helped them hide the A from me.

 

 

There was no chance of R because he wanted to move in with her (her H kicked her out immediately). But I cut all of them out of my life immediately. If they helped them, gone. If they knew, gone. The only people from that time in my life I still talk to are the ones who didn't know or tried to tell me and I didn't believe.

[MJJean]

Your wife is the crappy friend for putting her friend in this position. No one “helped” your wife do anything, a grown woman makes her own choices & if you’re putting your effort into blaming others but staying with your wife...you don’t seem to have a prayer.

 

I NEVER understood this logic to blame someone Bc they knew what another grown adult is doing. It’s like, if I know my friend is doing drugs & she gets caught, her spouse calling me the addict even though it wasn’t me. It just doesn’t make any logical sense to stay with your spouse & blame others...what if she does it again? Who will you blame next?

 

I've been the BS and the WS and have watched other marriages experience infidelity from the position of friend and can absolutely say that friends can help the WS commit their infidelity. Those that cover for their buddy in any way are actively helping. Especially those who agree to act as communication intermediaries, are willing to lie and say the WS was with them when, in fact, the WS was with their AP, and those who allow the WS and AP to use their home as a meeting place.

 

It's not about blaming the friend. It's about not wanting someone who'd stab you in the back coming around.

[lolablue17]

When someone knows and doesn't tell me, he\she chooses side - definitelly not my side. They chose to help the other side who cheated on me. Although I shouldn't judge themfor their decision not to tell me, I certainly wouldn't want any contact with them.

[Chilli]

With friends like that who needs enemies . l sure as hell wouldn't be giving them the time of day ever again.

[carhill]

How do you handle a person who knew of your wifes affair and helped it continue? Would you allow your significant other to continue with their friendship or insist no contact?

 

One, I'd need independently verifiable proof before even considering any decision or discussion of it. Hearsay doesn't meet the burden of proof for me. The friend looking me in the eye and admitting it would.

 

Then, that in hand, I and my spouse would make a marital decision on such matters. Accepting the affair and choosing to continue the marriage is a choice and choices have consequences, for both parties. Each couple decides that for themselves.

 

Myself, if I had active knowledge and proof of the friend taking an active role in the affair, I'd be inclined to request no contact with that friend. Active would be, as example, facilitating the affair by providing means and opportunity for it to occur and continue, actively lying to me personally regarding aspects of it, etc, etc.

 

As long as the agreement is upheld by both parties, done is done. Over. It's a new marriage. Any existing prenup or postnup would be negotiated to address the issue.

 

So, OP, how about you. Your wife had an affair, apparently. What's your deal?

[preraph]

honestly i think at the point where you start saying "I will not allow you to speak to your friend again" you should just throw in the towel on the marriage, it's not going to work.

 

This. It's your wife who had the affair. Not her friend. Your wife has her own brain.

[Whoknew30]

I've been the BS and the WS and have watched other marriages experience infidelity from the position of friend and can absolutely say that friends can help the WS commit their infidelity. Those that cover for their buddy in any way are actively helping. Especially those who agree to act as communication intermediaries, are willing to lie and say the WS was with them when, in fact, the WS was with their AP, and those who allow the WS and AP to use their home as a meeting place.

 

It's not about blaming the friend. It's about not wanting someone who'd stab you in the back coming around.

 

I’m going to go back to the saying “if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you”....no one “allows” another adult to do anything. It was your spouses decision & that’s it! I’ve been in all spots too & it was no one’s fault but me for my A & my H for his. His friends knew & I never once felt they stabbed me in the back & it was my husband’s fault for putting his friends in that position.

 

A WS can manipulate their BS & the BS is going to blame others that knew, with no thought that their WS may have manipulated their friends too? ..I can understand this logic by someone that divorces their spouse but not by someone that forgives them...it’s so hypocritical to forgive your spouse but blame

Other for communication. You’re right, it’s back stabbing, by your spouse!

[road]

Those that would help keep an affair a secret to help

make it happen are not a friend of the marriage for a

friend would not let a marriage be harmed.

 

If they were a true friend they would not let their cheating

friend harm themselves without stepping in to help

prevent the damage happening.

 

They are definitely not a friend of the marriage. Those

that allow a marriage to be harmed are not a friend to

the WS or the BS.

 

Friends like that are not needed.

 

Affairs have consequences. To lose this type of "friend"

as a result of an affair is having to face ones consequences.

 

The BS can never recover the marriage and rebuild the broken

trust when the lying cheating friends that hid and or enabled

the affair are allowed to have continued contact with the WS.

 

This "friendship" has to be seen post D day as a friendship that

was not worth very much by either the WS or the EF, Enabling

Friend for both were willing to risk the friendship from having

to end because of their co-committing the affair.

 

Yes co-committing. When a bank gets robbed. The driver of the

get away car will be charged with murder of the bank teller

because he aided and abetted the commission of the crime.

Even when he never carried a gun and never got out of the

get away car.

[Popsicle]

You need to get rid of your wife. She’s the source of the problem.

[wmacbride]

It's not about blaming the friend for the wie's affair. It's about blaming them for being a knowing participant in something that hurt the bs.

 

A "friend" who will do that isn't a friend. In the bs's shoes, I couldn't trust the person who did that.

 

his wife may be a different matter. If she does the work to find out why she cheated, learns better ways of behaving and takes responsibility for her choices, the marriage may well have a chance. I highly doubt a friend would agree to those terms.

[Clay]

If your wife doesn't see this as a threat to your marriage then she is telling you she is not really remorseful. She might have regret but not real remorse. You can stay with her but understand your alone in this fight for a real loving relationship and the next time a guy catches her eye your head will be on the chopping block once again.

 

I wouldn't demand she get rid of the friend. I would tell her the fact she is fighting to keep this person in her life and not dealing with this on her own says everything about the kinds of person she is. She would no longer be a person I wanted to spend my life with.

 

C

[MJJean]

I’m going to go back to the saying “if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you”....no one “allows” another adult to do anything. It was your spouses decision & that’s it! I’ve been in all spots too & it was no one’s fault but me for my A & my H for his. His friends knew & I never once felt they stabbed me in the back & it was my husband’s fault for putting his friends in that position.

 

A WS can manipulate their BS & the BS is going to blame others that knew, with no thought that their WS may have manipulated their friends too? ..I can understand this logic by someone that divorces their spouse but not by someone that forgives them...it’s so hypocritical to forgive your spouse but blame

Other for communication. You’re right, it’s back stabbing, by your spouse!

 

Maybe we have different kinds of friendships. DH and I don't have separate friends really. Everyone is more or less a mutual friend. Friends come to the house, eat the food I cook, make messes I clean, chat with and sometimes advise my kids, etc. The out of state ones sometimes stay days on end when they come back to our state for visits. No way in hell would I tolerate someone I don't like anymore and don't trust eating my food and sleeping under my roof. I don't want that person in my life in any way, directly or indirectly.

 

The WS is responsible for his or her affair and whatever consequences come of it. The friends who did things like let the WS use their place to screw, covered for lost time, etc. are responsible for their behavior and the consequences.